This is the final entry in the arc on online privacy started in Online Privacy, Part 1. Our last entry talked about Role-Specific Identity. We end the arc here with Self-Expressive Identity and a form unique to the web, Anonymous-Expressive Identity.The last identity of common commerce is Self-Expressive Identity. In common commerce, Self-Expressive Identity is the goal because it's where the individual personalizes the seller's brand as part of their own identity. Examples of self-expressive identity can be found among owners of BMWs, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and BlackBerry PDAs. In these and many other cases individuals become billboards for the products they've identified with. This kind of personal identification with a brand or product is called ego identification and occurs when the seller's brand is integrated into the individual's Identity to the point that it influences that individual's Personality.
Self-Expressive identity isn't something relegated only to product and service branding. It is the first stage of tribal identity and can be seen in those wearing school jackets, gang colors, body piercings and tattoos (literally where the individual brands their body so that they'll be easily recognized by society as possessing a group affiliation).
Self-Expressive Identity is used in community building, as in the seller creating a community within which the individual gets to express their identity because being around people who think the way you think and do what you do and like what you like is one of the most identity affirming things anyone can do. And Self-Expressive Identity leads us into a new identity specific to information exchange and ecommerce systems, Anonymous-Expressive Identity.
Anonymous-Expressive Identity occurs when the individual creates a role for themselves and the seller accepts it and uses it to communicate with the individual. This is true tribal identity in the information age because by understanding the anonymous-expressive identity the individual presents, we know a great deal about them, their life, their hopes, dreams and aspirations, without invading their privacy at all. For example, you can tell a great deal about the owners of the following emailnyms (email pseudonyms) with a little thought and cultural understanding:
- tuboricuamary4u
- kzinlaw
- a company in which the privately used, internal email addresses used by top management include "tex, reno, philly, kc, fresno"
- a company in which in the privately used, internal email addresses include "mightydan, brainchild and wondergirl"
- paladin
- suemist
- grannygoodwitch
- newbillyland
- sueoboe
- meows7
- stonewall
And there you have it, the history and use of privacy from an explanation of Privacy, Identity and Anonymity to how identity occurs on the web to this post on a form of identity which can only occur on the web, Anonymous-Expressive Identity.
Hopefully I'll think of something else to write about over the weekend, and thanks.
(Information in this arc is from Chapter 7, "Experience Versus Expectation" of my next book, Reading Virtual Minds. Text and images copyright Joseph Carrabis and NextStage Evolution 2006-2007)
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